Answers on psychology questions (Mood disorders) - Essay Example

?PSYCHOLOGY Question Mood disorder is a condition that many people are suffering from in their day-to-day life. However, the condition comes in different forms that have unique symptoms. One of the types of the mood disorders is unipolar depressive disorder. This condition is also known as major-depressive-disorder (MDD), clinical depression, recurrent depression, major depression or unipolar depression. The main characteristic of this condition is the persistent low mood, which degenerates to low self-esteem in a person. The low self-esteem then makes a person to lose interest in normal merry-making activities. This condition has dreadful effects on the normal life of a person. The effects are changes in a person’s appetite, which make it to reduce as the condition worsens. A person lacks the appetite to eat normally and consequently affecting their health. In addition, an affected person always spends most of their time in solitude and thus affecting their family. The family can feel isolated since the affected person does not take part in making any family decisions. A person living with this condition can also lack sleep, which can adversely affect their health. In effect, the person can lose weight and fall sick occasionally because of lack of activity. Moreover, an affected person always has feelings of sadness and lacks the zeal to live hence possessing suicidal thoughts (Ghaemi, 2008). This is a condition that affects people between the age limit of twenty to thirty years. However, older people are also prone to the condition. The cause of this condition is always hereditary, since there are no cogent medical causes to it. A person inherits the genes of the condition from their parents and upon reaching a certain age, the symptoms start showing. However, continued abuse of drugs is considered as one of the medical causes of this condition. There are drug addicts who use depressants as their dosage of drugs. The aftermath of using the depressants brings feelings of neglect, sadness and isolation to these drug addicts. Consequently, such people can divulge into depression and hence developing unipolar depressive disorder. The doctors thus mainly use a person’s medical report to diagnose if a person is suffering from this condition (Ghaemi, 2008). The medical report will show if they have a history of the condition in their family since it is hereditary. Since there are no coherent medial causes for this condition, there are no intense laboratory examinations and tests to diagnose the disease. The clinicians and physicians mainly check the physical conditions and behaviors of a person to examine their condition. Medication for unipolar depressive disorder includes anti-depressant medication (Pharmacotherapy) and psychotherapy. Anti-depressant medication involves administering drugs to an affected person that counter their depression and brings them to their normal healthy mood. However, psychotherapy involves the use of non-medical means to treat the patient. These ways entail psychological treatment that is mainly counseling to the affected person. In this type of medication, an affected person is counseled on the importance of interaction and living a healthy social life. This is important since the patients with this condition are always susceptible to committing suicide and thus require good advice and monitoring (Ghaemi, 2008). Question 2 Hanna is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is a disorder that is described by anxiety in a person who survived a horrifying physical or emotional occurrence. The survivors of such occurrences always have insistent and perpetual bad thoughts, feelings and flashbacks of the ordeal in their memories. This makes them fear doing particular activities that can remind them of the bad experience (Ghaemi, 2008). In this case, the accident that Hanna was involved in twenty years ago was a terrible one, which had a bad emotional impact on her. The memories from the accident make her have the fear to drive on large highways. It is clear that Hanna evades the feeling of uneasiness when driving on the large highways since the events of the accident day still linger in her mind (Ghaemi, 2008). There are numerous indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder. Avoiding activities, thoughts, areas and talks that remind someone of a tragic event, they were involved. Another symptom is the constant series of flashbacks of the bad occurrences. There are also incidences of trauma that victims of this condition go through occasionally when they think about the ordeal. In addition, an affected person can have nightmares about the whole experience (Ghaemi, 2008). Hanna thus shows some of these symptoms, which will easily qualify as post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis. She is trying to avoid driving on the large highways since it will remind her of the accident. The fear of remembering the accident while driving is also another factor that makes Hanna to be reluctant on using the large highways. It is clear that she is afraid of getting involved in an accident like the one she had 20 years ago. These are all symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (Ghaemi, 2008). Chapter 3 In this case, Michael is most likely to be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. This is a condition that is characterized by a disturbance that entails difficulties in the controlling of moment-to-moment reactions to stressful occurrences with extreme sensitivity to other people. This type of mood disorder also causes a person to do self-injury. The self-injury could be in form of cutting oneself, self-mutation or any activity that the person does to counter an overpowering negative feeling (Ghaemi, 2008). The symptoms of borderline personality disorder are numerous. They include constant frenzied efforts to avert existing or imagined solitude. A person suffering from this condition can seem to do weird activities that will set their mind off the feeling of abandonment. Another symptom is inappropriate anger that can ooze without no significant cause. An affected person can get mad out of a petty thing. The third symptom is self-injury that an affected does to themselves to avoid negative feelings. Self-injury causes adverse wounds on the affected person’s body. The last symptom of this condition is impulsitivity, where the affected person can do activities without caring about the long-term effects. This can include eating the same type of food and not caring about the medical implications. In addition, an affected person can be inactive to do certain activities and not realizing it (Ghaemi, 2008). In this case, Mike causes himself self-injury. He picks his clothing and skin until he bleeds. Moreover, Mike rocks his body back and forth repeatedly. This is self-injury that leaves Mike with many wounds in his body, but he does not realize it since it relieves him of negative feelings. Moreover, Mike exudes impulsivity by eating French fries for the three meals a day. He does not realize the adverse effects of taking the same kind of food in a day. His impulsivity is also evident in his inactiveness to do attend to any task (Ghaemi, 2008).    References Ghaemi, S. N. (2008). Mood disorders: A practical guide. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Read More